With much laughter, the rest of us joined him in plucking cher-ries from the branches and popping them into our mouths. Some of the most sophisticated individuals in Rome were reduced to a childlike euphoria by the unbridled joy of eating cherries.
"Sensational!" said Archias, with cherry juice running down his chin. "I must compose a poem to celebrate this crop of cherries."
Cicero sighed. "More wonderful than I remembered."
Even the dour Arcesislaus smiled as he shared the joy of eating cherries.
I felt a hand on my shoulder, and turned to see that it belonged to my host. "Come, Gordianus," he said in a low voice. "There's something I want you to see."
Leaving the others behind, Lucullus led me to a tree at the farthest corner of the cherry orchard. Its branches were more gnarled and its leaves more lustrous than those of the other trees, and its cherries were the largest and plumpest I had yet seen, of a hue that was almost purple.
"Of all the cherry trees I brought back from Pontus, this variety is the most extraordinary. The Greek-speakers of Pontus have pre-served the ancient name which the aboriginal barbarians gave to this cherry. I find the word impossible to pronounce, but they tell me it translates as 'Most-Precious-of-All'-which these cherries are. Their flavor is sweet and very complex-at first subtle, then almost overwhelming. And their skins are very, very delicate. Most other cherries travel well; you could pack them in a basket and carry them across Italy to share with a friend. But these are so tender that they can scarcely survive a fall from the tree. To appreciate them, you literally must eat them from the tree-and even then, they may burst if you pluck them too carelessly."
Lucullus reached for one of the dark, plump cherries. He seemed not to tug at all; rather, the heavy fruit appeared to tumble into his palm of its own volition.
"Here is something evanescent," he murmured, "a sensation too unique to be described, capable only of being experienced: the cherry that can be eaten only beneath the tree, so fragile is it. As such, it has another, practical advantage: it can't have been poisoned."
1 raised an eyebrow. "Is that a concern?"
Lucullus smiled without mirth. "A man like myself is never without enemies."
"Yet I saw no tasters at the meal."
"That is because you were meant to see no tasters."
He extended his arm and offered the cherry to me. "For you, Gordianus, the season's very first Most-Precious-of-All."
"You do me a great honor, Lucullus." For which you will doubtless ask something in return, I thought. Nevertheless, I accepted the cherry and slipped it between my lips.
The skin was sleek and warm, and so thin that it seemed to dissolve at the merest contact with my teeth. The meat of the cherry pressed sensuously against my tongue. The sweet juice flooded my mouth. At first I was disappointed, for the flavor seemed less intense than the cherries I had just tasted. Then, as I located the pit with my tongue and worked it toward my lips, the full flavor of the cherry suffused my senses with an intensity that was intoxicating. Lucullus saw my reaction and smiled.
I swallowed. Gradually, the precedence claimed by my sense of taste receded and my other senses returned to the fore. I became aware of a change in the light as the lowering sun shot rays of dark gold through the leafy orchard. I heard the distant laughter of the others, who had not yet followed us.
"Why did you ask me here today, Lucullus?" I said quietly. "What is it you want from me?"
He sighed. He picked another of the cherries, but did not eat it; instead he held it in the cup of his palm, gazing at it. "How fleeting and elusive are the pleasures of life; how lasting the pain and bitterness, the disappointments and the losses. When I became a general, I was determined to be the best general possible, and never to repeat my father's failure; but I was determined also never to wreak destruction when destruction was not called for. So many generations of men have labored so hard to build up the few great storehouses of beauty and knowledge in this world, yet by fire and sword their accomplishments can be destroyed in minutes, their memory reduced to ashes. The power of the Roman legions is a great responsibility; I swore that Sulla would be my model, as he had been my mentor in other matters. When he had the chance to sack Athens and level it to the ground, instead Sulla saved it, and so passed on a great gift to future generations. What I least wanted was to ever gain a reputation such as that of Mummius of our grandfathers' time-the Mummius who ruthlessly destroyed the city of Corinth and never passed a Greek temple without plundering it. And yet… "
Lucullus pondered the cherry in his hand, as if it contained some mystery. "This tree came from an orchard near a town called Amisus, in Pontus. Did you ever hear of Amisus?"
I shook my head.
"It was not a particularly beautiful or wealthy city, but it did have the distinction of having been founded long ago as a colony of Athens; Amisus was an outpost of civilization at the farthest reaches of the world. Of all the horrors and atrocities that occurred during my war with Mithridates, the siege of Amisus caused me the greatest despair. The enemy commander who held the city saw that my forces must ultimately overwhelm him, so he engineered an escape by setting part of the city on fire. The fire distracted my men, held them back for a while, and concealed the movement of the enemy troops toward the sea, where they boarded ships and sailed away, leaving the city defenseless. When I realized the situation, I was determined to maintain the discipline of my troops. I gave orders that the fires should be extinguished and the city occupied in orderly fashion. But that was not what happened.
"The men were restless after the long siege; they were full of pent-up fury, frustrated that the city had been taken without blood-shed and eager for plunder. My officers were unable to restrain them. They surged into the defenseless city, raping boys and women, killing old men to slake their bloodlust, toppling statues, smashing furniture, breaking anything that was breakable for the sheer joy of destruction. They were heedless of the fire; they even helped to spread it, for night had fallen and they wanted light to continue their rampage, so they lit torches and carelessly threw them aside, or even deliberately set houses and even people aflame. The destruction of Amisus was a long, bloody night of fire and chaos. I stood by and watched, unable to stop them."
He gazed at the cherry a moment longer, then dropped it. It struck a paving stone and burst open with a spray of blood-red pulp. "Do you see, Gordianus? I meant to be Sulla; instead, I was Mummius."
"Even with the best intentions, each of us is helpless before the Fates," I said.
He nodded. "And something good did come of the siege of Amisus. I brought back to Rome this tree that bears the cherry they call Most-Precious-of-All."
I heard a burst of laughter from the others. Eating their way from tree to tree, they had drawn nearer. "Your other guests will join us soon," I said. "If there was something else you wished to say to me…"
He nodded, drawn back to the moment. "Yes-yes, there is a matter I wish to discuss. Look there, Gordianus. Do you see that gardener at work across the way, tending to a rose bush?"
I peered past leaves and branches. The man was bent over, pruning the cane of a rose bush. The last rays of daylight glittered on his sharp blade.
"I see him," I said, though because of the broad-brimmed hat he wore, I could see little of the man's face except his grizzled jaw.
"Do you remember earlier, Gordianus, when Archias quoted from the poem he's composing for my triumph-that bit about the rebel general Varius?"
"Of course: 'Put no one-eyed man to the sword '"
"Exactly. When Archias spoke those lines, a shadow crossed my face; you saw it."
"Perhaps."
"Don't be coy, Gordianus! I felt your eyes on me. You notice things that others do not."
"Yes, Lucullus, I saw your reaction, and I wondered at it."
"The poem is accurate, up to a point. I wanted Marcus Varius to be captured alive, and he was. My men brought him before me in chains."
"You s
howed mercy to him."
He flashed a joyless smile. "Not exactly. My intention was to keep him alive so that eventually he could be marched through the streets of Rome during my triumph. You know what happens to a captured enemy in such a procession; the people spit at him, curse him, pelt him with offal. And afterwards, like the traitor he was, Marcus Varius would be thrown from the Tarpeian Rock to his death."
"You speak as if none of this will happen."
"No; because Varius escaped. On my voyage home, just in sight of Sicily, somehow he slipped from his shackles, fought his way to the deck, and jumped overboard. We turned about and sailed after him, but the sun was in our eyes and we lost sight of him. The cur-rent was strong. The coast was a long way off, not impossible, per-haps, for a strong swimmer to reach, but Varius would have been weak from confinement, and one of my men was sure that he had wounded him; it seemed almost certain that Varius was swallowed by the sea and drowned."
"Have you received information to the contrary?"
"Not even the slightest rumor. I know what you're thinking: Varius was a man of considerable importance, with a bounty on his head and a distinguishing characteristic-his lack of one eye. If he did survive, he's either fled beyond Rome's reach, or buried himself in such obscurity that he might as well be dead."
"It would seem that either way-alive or dead-Varius is of no use to you now. You'll have to do without him as an ornament for your triumph."
Lucullus raised an eyebrow. "Cicero warned me of your penchant for sarcasm. But you strike to the heart of the matter. I spared the life of Varius for the specific purpose of bringing him back to Rome alive. He eluded me and thwarted my plans. I might as well have had the soldiers bring me his head on a pike, after all. And yet…" He turned his attention again to the slave who was pruning the rose bushes. "You, there! Gardener!"
The man stopped what he was doing and looked up. When he saw who spoke, he quickly lowered his head, so that his eyes were hidden by the brim of his hat; I never quite saw his face. "Yes, Master?" he called.
"Come here."
The gardener shuffled toward us, keeping his head bowed.
"There, that's close enough," said Lucullus. The man was still several paces distant. "How long have you been here, working in my gardens?"
"Only since the start of spring, Master. I was purchased in Athens by one of your agents and brought here to tend to your roses. It's what I've done all my life, Master-tend to roses." The man spoke passable Latin with a Greek accent. He continued to avert his gaze, as if awed by his master.
"What is your name?" said Lucullus. "Yes, yes, I know I've asked you before, but tell me again."
"Motho, Master." The man fiddled nervously with the pruning knife in his hand.
"Let me see your face."
Motho lifted his chin. He blinked and squinted as the last ray of the sun struck his single eye; the other eye was missing. The injury had long ago healed over. Scarred flesh covered the place where the eye should have been.
"How did you lose that eye, Motho?" said Lucullus. His voice was
oddly flat.
The man sighed. He had told this story before. "It happened a long time ago, Master. Pricked it on a rose thorn. Seemed a small wound at first, but then it went bad. Had a fever for days; nearly died. In the end I got better-except for the eye."
Lucullus nodded. "Go back to your work now… Motho."
Looking relieved to be dismissed, the man shuffled back to the rose bush.
Lucullus seized my elbow in a grip far stronger than necessary and pulled me into the deep shadows beneath the cherry tree. "Did you see, Gordianus?"
"See what?"
"He has but one eye!" "So I noticed. What of it?"
Lucullus lowered his voice to a whisper. "His face-it's no longer the same. Different somehow-leaner, more lined… but a man can change his face if he has a will to. And his voice is different, I must admit-but anyone can pretend to speak with an accent…"
"What are you saying, Lucullus?"
"That slave, the gardener who calls himself Motho-I'm almost certain the man is actually… Marcus Varius."
"What? Surely not! Can't you tell for certain, simply by looking
at him?"
"Eyes are unreliable; eyes deceive a man. There is that other faculty, which Antiochus postulates, a sense of knowing-"
"It hardly seems likely that Varius would escape from your clutches only to turn up as a rose-tender in your garden, Lucullus." I almost laughed, but the look on his face stopped me. He was dead serious. "Surely there must be men who knew Varius here in Rome, be-fore he turned traitor and joined Sertorius, men who could identify him without any doubt. Round up a few such fellows and ask them to have a look at this Motho-"
"I've already done that, Gordianus."
"And the result?"
"To a man, they deny that this fellow is Marcus Varius." "Well, then…"
"They're lying! Or else by some trickery Varius has deceived them."
I shook my head. "I don't understand. What makes you think he's Varius?"
"I don't think it. I know it. The knowledge came to me in a flash, the moment I laid eyes on the man. It must be as Antiochus says: we have a faculty for discerning truth from falsehood, which comes from a source not limited to the five senses, or to what we call reason. That man is Marcus Varius. I simply know it!"
I looked at the gardener across the way. He was stooped over, still pruning the rose bush despite the failing light. I felt a prickle of dread, imagining the end to which Lucullus's wild notion might lead, if he was determined to pursue it. "Lucullus, is this why you invited me here today-to ask me about this man, and any… uncertainty… regarding his identity?"
"I know the circumstances are strange, Gordianus, very strange. But I haven't yet told you the strangest thing, which even I can't account for."
My sense of dread increased. Above the pounding of my heart I heard the laughter of the other guests, who were now quickly moving to join us; I saw them as shadows converging upon us in the twi-light. "What is it, Lucullus?" I whispered.
"This fellow who calls himself Motho-do you remember which of his eyes is missing? Think carefully!"
"I don't need to think," I said. "I just saw him. It's his right eye that's missing."
"Are you certain of that, Gordianus?"
I narrowed my eyes. I conjured the man's face in memory. "Absolutely certain. He has no right eye."
The expression on Lucullus's face was ghastly. "And yet, always before, Varius was missing his left eye. Now here he is, pretending to be this slave Motho, and as you yourself can testify, he's missing his right eye. How can that be, Gordianus? How can such a thing be?"
"How I should love to have been there, Gordianus! Tell me again about those cherries." My good friend Lucius Claudius smiled wanly and gestured to the slave behind him to recommence wafting a long pole surmounted by a fan of peacock feathers, so as to stir the sluggish air. We reclined on couches beneath the shade of a fig tree in Lucius Claudius's garden at his house on the Palatine Hill. The weather was much warmer than the previous day.
My dear friend, always portly, was heavier than I had ever seen him; his complexion, always ruddy, had become alarmingly florid. His orange curls hung limply over his forehead, and his breathing, even at rest, was slightly labored. It was now some fourteen years since I first met him; time had begun to take a toll on him. It struck me that a rich meal such as the one Lucullus had served the previous day was the last thing Lucius Claudius needed.
"You've not tasted Lucullus's cherries?" I said.
"Never! I've heard about them, of course, and about how fabulous the house and the gardens are; but I've not yet been invited. Imagine that! Gordianus the Finder has trumped me on the social front! I'm really quite envious. But then, I've never felt at home in the rarefied intellectual circle of the Lucullus brothers; all that arty-farty philosophical blather rather puts me off my wine. And I seldom stray far from my own house anyway
, these days. The litter-bearers complain that I've become too heavy for them to carry up and down the Seven Hills." "They do not!"
"Not out loud, perhaps; but I hear them wheezing and grumbling. And now that the warm weather has begun, it's too hot to go out. I shall settle here under the shade of this fig tree and stay put until autumn."
"What about your Etruscan estate? You love it in the summer."
He sighed. "I should give it to you, Gordianus. Would you like a farm to retreat to?"
"Don't be ridiculous! What do I know about farming?"
"Yet you constantly complain of the indignities of city life. Perhaps I should leave the farm to you in my will."
"I'm touched, Lucius, but you'll probably outlive me by a good ten years." I said this lightly, but felt a prick of anxiety that Lucius should speak of wills; did he feel unwell? "Besides, you're changing the subject. I was hoping you could tell me a bit more about Lucullus." Lucius Claudius was always a fountain of gossip, especially about the movers and shakers of the ruling class.
A mischievous glint lit his eyes. "Ah, let me think. Well, for one thing, it sounds as if Cato rather glossed over the matter of Lucullus's father and his scandalous end."
"Yes, I was wondering about that." Twice at the banquet I had seen a shadow cross Lucullus's face: first, when Archias recited his lines about the capture of one-eyed Varius, and then again, when
Cato told the anecdote about Lucullus's father. "It seems rather extreme that the elder Lucullus should have been exiled simply because his campaign against the slave revolt in Sicily stalled."
"Oh, his offense was much more serious than merely losing a battle or two! When the Senate recalled the elder Lucullus from his command, it was his subsequent behavior that was so unforgivable- and quite inexplicable as well, at least to those who knew him, because the elder Lucullus had always been a model of probity and even temper. You see, instead of doing the honorable thing, the normal thing, when he was recalled-leaving his provisions and maps and dossiers of information for the use of his successor-the elder Lucullus instead destroyed the whole lot. Smashed weapons, dumped stores of food in the sea, even burned maps and records of troop movements. It was most strange, because he'd never been known as a spiteful man; his personality was more like that of his sons, and you've seen how pleasant and easygoing they both are. That's one reason his punishment was so controversial; many of his friends and allies here in Rome simply refused to believe that the elder Lucullus had done such a contemptible thing. But the proof was irrefutable, and the court unanimously condemned him of malversation and sent him into exile."
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